I was amazed by J. Mervis's News of the Week story “U.S. output flattens, and NSF wonders why” (3 August, p. [582][1]). Not by the conclusion that U.S. science productivity is flattening out, but because apparently nobody interviewed by the NSF could identify the reason. Had the question been posed of almost any working scientist I know, the simple and accurate answer would have been that the number of papers that are written is diminishing because scientists are able to spend less time writing papers! Instead, we spend ever-more time on the increasingly burdensome administrative requirements of conducting science legally, and on writing, rewriting, and re-rewriting grant applications as the NIH's pay line drops to catastrophically low levels. As the number of hours in a day is finite and unchanging, something has to give. If I didn't have to spend the rest of this month ignoring various half-complete manuscripts and rewriting a grant application, I'd be able to explain in more detail. # {#article-title-2} ![Figure][2] CREDIT: IMAGES.COM/CORBIS The regulatory burden that accelerated around 1990 is finally affecting the output of U.S. researchers (J. Mervis, “U.S. output flattens, and NSF wonders why,” News of the Week, 3 August, p. [582][1]). Increased funding is reduced by the cost of regulatory compliance: expensive security systems for animals, superfluous accreditation, excessive requirements for cage sterilization, verification of sterility using cultures, and signatures at every step. And, of course, the regulatory documentation takes time away from documenting the research itself. Because of the monumental effort required to gain approval to use animal or human subjects in research, discouraged investigators avoid pursuing experiments that require new approvals, even if the idea may take only a few days to test. The fault lies not with committee members trying to maintain compliance while still permitting research to proceed, but rather with regulations that aim to prevent not only harm, but the appearance of harm, or even the possibility of harm no matter how unlikely. Even an experiment in which participants must listen to a snippet of song and judge its familiarity is subject to stringent requirements intended to protect those participants from harm. Science is an exploration of the unexpected, and these constraints are suffocating. We must expect creative students to look to other careers when they see how science is done today. They are replaced by those who are comfortable with bureaucracy and who do not know that science used to be accompanied by enthusiasm and spontaneity. The only mystery is why the flat output line has not yet turned down. # {#article-title-3} The News of the Week story “U.S. output flattens, and NSF wonders why” by J. Mervis (3 August, p. [582][1]) states that “the total output of U.S. scientists stopped growing in the early 1990s and hasn't budged since then.” This conclusion is based on publication productivity data from 1992 and 2001. Had more recent data been used, at least one university, Drexel, would have shown a 130% increase in publication productivity. Specifically, in 2002 Drexel faculty published 502 articles; in 2006 the number grew to 1165, according to data from Thompson Scientific Web of Science. Drexel's productivity has not only budged, but surged. The decrease shown in the article for MCP Hahnemann University and Drexel University requires context. For starters, MCP and Drexel are one and the same university. When Drexel acquired the academic units of the bankrupt Allegheny University of the Health Sciences in 1998, it formed an exigent entity called MCP Hahnemann University, which by design was dissolved in 2002 and no longer exists. The compelling reason why Drexel and MCP show a decline in faculty publications during 1992 to 2001 is because of the profound shift in attention, energy, and resources on the part of both faculties as they worked toward the common goal of integrating the nation's largest private medical school, a college of nursing and health professions, and a school of public health into a consolidated, fully integrated university. This formidable and unprecedented undertaking was a success, and research and publishing are now thriving at Drexel University. Telling a story “by the numbers” alone can sometimes mean a tale half-told. Drexel and likely other universities accept NSF's challenge to step up productivity and are already meeting it. [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.317.5838.582 [2]: pending:yes